From We Are Not Numbers
Gaza Strip
January 14, 2024
Eman Dewari along with her husband Tayseer Abu Holy and her four children (from left to right) Mohab, Aser, Mohaymen, and Eliaa. The children were all under the age of 16. Photo provided by Basman Dewari.
They have thrown my heart into the fire.
Now, they add another gallon
of gasoline.
They killed Eman, my young sister.
Leaving my mother’s heart
suspended between earth and sky.
The good news is
that she is no longer on earth.
She no longer belongs
to a world that buried her
under the rubble of her house.
Her killer did not allow
any attempt to rescue her.
They let her spend the night
cold, alone, tasting her own blood,
away from her child
she was trying to reach
when her home fell
all over her head.
The good news is
she will meet my dad.
I am sure she missed him a lot.
She will live in a space
where sounds can’t hurt anymore.
She will spend time again
with her family without seeing the shadow
of their death reflected on the curtains
in a dark room illuminated
by the flashing of missiles.
The bad news is she will miss her mother and siblings.
Maybe she will miss one amputated dream.
Yet the good news is
she is not going to miss
any of her children.
They killed them all together.
Editor’s note: Eman Derawi was killed with her family by Israel on Jan. 4, 2024. Basman Derawi has also commemorated in poems his good friends Essa Essa, killed on Nov. 22, 2023, and Oudah Al Haw, killed on Jan. 3, 2024.
Mentor Kevin Hadduck,
Helena, Montana, USA